In 1980 UT filed suit to stop drilling by two oil and gas companies near university-owned property in Scott and Morgan Counties. The two companies, Petroleum Development Corporation of Palm Springs, California, and Guernsey Petroleum Corporation of Atlanta, were named in the suit as violating state rules by drilling within three hundred feet of property owned by UT. The property was given to UT in the 1930s, and UT leased oil and gas rights to Guernsey in 1971. Guernsey did not pay rent or drill on the property for nine years, which cancelled the contract. UT rejected a check from Guernsey in April 1980 for $117,000 in back rent.
In 1983 the executive committee of the board of trustees approved an agreement to lease land at the Plateau Experiment Station in Cumberland County for oil and gas drilling. The five-year lease called for the Atlantic Richfield Company to drill at least one well a year, with UT to receive a 15 percent royalty on any production yielded by the drilling, and an initial $35-per-acre lease, totaling more than $48,300. Atlantic Richfield was the only company to bid. In 2001 UT sought approval from the State Building Committee to lease additional Cumberland Forest land for oil and gas exploration, but those efforts stuttered when the executive subcommittee of the State Building Commission required the formation of a statewide policy for lease of mineral rights. The institution tried again in 2005–6, bringing a request to the executive subcommittee in March 2006, but no policies were yet in place. The proposal passed, subject to the condition that the attorney general would review it.
In 2008 UT received permission from the State Building Commission to issue an RFP for a lease of some eight thousand acres of the Cumberland Forest for exploration by hydraulic fracturing. CONSOL’s subsidiary, CNX Gas, was the only entity submitting a proposal. CNX was to pay $300,000 upon signing of the lease, rental of $35 per acre per year, plus royalties averaging about 15 percent for oil, natural gas, and bed methane extracted from the site. Environmentalists feared the impact of the drilling on the ecostructure of the forested land. An April 20, 2009, vote by the State Building Commission on whether to approve UT’s request to lease land in the Cumberland Forest to CNX to allow CNX to employ hydraulic fracturing techniques to extract natural gas was postponed at UT’s request following questions raised by student and external environmental groups about the environmental effects of fracking, as well as questions from Governor Bredesen. The Institute of Agriculture responded to concerns by indicating that the company would use air-blast drilling, but in the event that a well had to be drilled, drilling mud with biodegradable polymers would be used. According to the institute, no drilling fluids would be used, and the water supply would not be compromised. The institute also indicated that UT would gain valuable teaching and research opportunities through the leasing, and the roads associated with oil and gas development would be used to improve access to the property for developing teaching, research, demonstration, and forest management programs. The lease would also generate more than $300,000 per year. On April 24, 2009, UT withdrew its pending proposal to lease land in the Cumberland Forest.
On March 1, 2010, Dr. Joe Dipietro, in his final months as chancellor of the Institute of Agriculture before assuming the presidency of the UT system, informed institute administrators that he planned to restart the effort to lease the land for drilling. In December 2011 UT officials met with Governor Bill Haslam to discuss the proposal and a year later (December 2012) discussed the plan with reporters and editors of the Knoxville News Sentinel and held an open house for landowners and the general public in Wartburg to answer questions and collect input on the 2012 plan. The 2012 plan included a much-strengthened research component and environmental protections by the successful bidder and had been retitled the “Oil and Gas Research Initiative,” which was designed to provide a “fact based, scientific investigation regarding the impacts of natural gas and oil extraction on groundwater, wildlife, soil disturbances, shale, and flora and fauna in The University’s Cumberland Forest.”
In March 2013 the State Building Commission’s Executive Subcommittee approved the issuance of an RFP for the project, and on June 7, 2013, UT issued the RFP with a deadline for submission of September 6. No bids were received. UT did receive one response—a letter from CNX Gas, stating that the current lease terms offered were not financially feasible and requesting a lease with drilling schedules and royalties tied to monthly gas prices and suggesting that its research and development department collaborate with UT scientists on mutually beneficial research.
UT Institute of Agriculture officials announced September 13, 2013, that they were halting plans to conduct fracking research on the Cumberland Plateau but indicated that they might revisit the project if there continued to be a need for such research.